Building the Product

What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with?

A starting point

An MVP is the least you can build (or fake) to test your single riskiest assumption, not a shrunken version of your dream product. Ask 'what's the one thing I must learn next?' and build only that; often it's a landing page, a manual service, or a Notion doc, not code. If you're not slightly embarrassed by it, you over-built.

Go deeper

Watch

▶️ Video
Free Beginner

How to Plan an MVP

On Y Combinator (YouTube) by Michael Seibel (YC) ~13 min

How to Plan an MVP
Why we picked it

The single most-cited practical talk on scoping a first product, from the person who ran YC's accelerator. It cuts through the theory and shows what an MVP actually looks like using Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe.

  • Talk to users before you build anything.
  • Launch something lean in weeks, not months, the goal is to start the feedback loop.
  • Don't try to solve every problem for every user; ship narrow and ugly.
Watch on YouTube youtube.com →
▶️ Video
Free Beginner

How to Plan an MVP

On Y Combinator Startup Library by Michael Seibel ~15 min

Why we picked it

Michael Seibel's crisp framing of holding the problem and customer tightly while holding the solution loosely, the mindset that keeps competitor and problem research honest. Free and canonical.

  • Hold the problem and customer tightly, the solution loosely
  • Talk to a few users before building, a little research beats none
  • 'No competitors' often signals a weak problem, not a blue ocean
  • Iterating changes the solution; pivoting changes the problem
Open ycombinator.com →

Read

📖 Book
Paid Beginner

The Lean Startup

From theleanstartup.com by Eric Ries ~330 pages

Why we picked it

The origin text for the modern MVP and validated-learning vocabulary every founder now uses. Read it for the mental model that a startup is a series of experiments, not a single bet.

  • Progress = validated learning, not features shipped.
  • Run the Build-Measure-Learn loop as fast as you can.
  • An MVP is a learning tool, not a cheap product.
Open theleanstartup.com →

People also ask

How do I decide which features to cut from v1? Cut everything that doesn't help you learn whether people want the core thing. Pick the one workflow your earliest, most desperate customers need a... Beginner 3 resources → How long should building an MVP take? Weeks, not months. If your MVP will take more than 4-8 weeks, your scope is wrong, not your timeline. Airbnb, Stripe, and Twitch all launched narro... Beginner 3 resources → Should I build an MVP at all, or can I validate without one? If you haven't talked to ~20-30 potential customers yet, don't build anything, you're not validating, you're procrastinating in code. A concierge M... Beginner 3 resources → How do I get my first users for the MVP? Recruit them by hand, one conversation at a time, this is the whole point of an early startup. Go to where your users already are, DM them, email t... Beginner 2 resources → What's the difference between an MVP and just a cheap, half-finished product? An MVP is a learning tool with a clear hypothesis attached; a cheap product is just a bad product. The point isn't to spend less money, it's to buy... Intermediate 2 resources → Who are my real competitors once I think in jobs to be done? Anything the customer currently 'hires' to get the same job done, including a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp group, a competitor, or doing nothing at all.... Intermediate 3 resources →